The advent of global communications networks (e.g., the Internet) has served as a catalyst for the ubiquity of portable computing devices that can access and communicate information from almost anywhere in the world. Similarly, the rapid advances in cellular networks and products have followed suit making cell phones and cell-capable devices just as pervasive, if not more pervasive, than portable computing devices. In response to the huge commercial opportunities that have become available by such networks, companies are rapidly moving to provide the infrastructure and products that can access both the cellular networks as well as the IP networks.
Not only has the Internet become a principal mechanism for conducting business, but other forms of user interaction can be offered. For example, the online computer gaming business has skyrocketed to a multi-billion dollar industry, with no end in sight, thereby providing a form of leisure activity for millions of users while also providing a boon to companies involved in such an industry. Such games typically only involve virtual world interaction between players, and require the user/player to purchase the client version of the game which thereafter can provide access to Internet servers supporting multiplayer mode gaming with other Internet users.
Historically, video games are very expensive to develop in terms of resources, testing, compatibility programming, and follow-up due to changing system requirements, etc., and depend in large part on the “wow” factor and expense of 3D graphics. With such onerous barriers of one-off game development, industry is searching for new ways of making gaming more affordable and thereby reaching a wider audience of gaming customers.
A new type of gaming includes mixed physical world-virtual world (or physical-virtual) gaming. Such gaming can be provided via mobile devices (e.g., cell phones) and is a nascent social technology in which participants play a mobile game in physical space that is tied in some way to a virtual world component. Technologies supporting this type of gaming currently are limited to a few experimental systems that support one-off game types. However, there is no existing system that supports general-purpose mobile gaming.